


a one hand clap is me and you

by TheVeryLastValkyrie



Series: and i'll be new baptised [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: But Still Pounds On the Door When He Wants Rey, F/M, In Which Ren is Trying Not to Be a Captive, Leading to a Rendition of 'Kiss the Girl', Still Yells at His Guards for the Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVeryLastValkyrie/pseuds/TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wishes she knew if it were Ben calling for her, or Kylo reaching for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a one hand clap is me and you

I have things to say. There are things I should say, but he’ll have the upper hand for the next…minute and a half, and while my left arm is jerking, struggling to break free, the left side of my jaw is clicking over and over, stuck for the next minute and a half in the cracking motion of a yawn.

“I’m leaving.”

He thinks he is. Wearing the badly fitting clothes of a dead pilot, he thinks he’s leaving.

“No,” I say, as calmly as I can with my jaw clicking over and over in my ear like a second heartbeat. “You’re going to sit back down, and then you’re going to tell me more about the Knights of Ren.”

“No,” he replies. “I’m not.” His left hand, he keeps where it is, the fingers twitching as he strains to keep me frozen. His right hand, he lays against my cheek. He touches me delicately, just below the eye, with the tips of two fingers. There’s a red glow where they were, and a little hissing sound escapes from between my teeth. “Girl.” He pronounces it slowly, carefully, as though trying to get it right. “ _Girl_.” As if it’s a name, not a word which describes but doesn’t explain me.

“You know that isn’t my name.”

It’ll be my fault when he leaves. My fault that I didn’t keep him restrained, my fault that I gave him the portions he needed to stay strong. My fault for burning the mask, my fault for letting him tear the room apart around me until it was only me and the chair in the centre of an unspoiled island of floor. My fault that I treated Kylo Ren like a person, my fault that I narrowed my eyes and tried to imagine him as Ben Solo. It’ll be my fault if he leaves (but he isn’t going to leave).

He prods my lip curiously, gently with his forefinger. “Rey.” A name which explains but doesn’t describe me. It does matter that I’m a girl, if it matters to him. It matters if he thinks it matters to me.

I startle myself my breaking free of his hold before the minute and a half is up, but I’ve always been stronger than I look. My left arm swings upwards like it’s breaking through the surface of water, like it was drowning before I broke us free. I hit him in the stomach, and he doubles up.

I did that.

A full minute and a half passes before he stops coughing and straightens up. He’s scowling. “Rey,” he says again. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?” I ask. “It’s good to see you’re human.” Not that I liked hitting him. I’ve fought him before, and I cut him, and I kicked him down, but it was frustration that made me swing my fist. A Jedi is above anger. A Jedi is above punching someone in the gut because they’re impossible, and a murderer, and because they’re impossible, and a murderer, you have to spend at least some part of every day with them to stop them pounding on the door, yelling that they want you, or out, or for you to let them out.

“Am I?” His face is smooth again, his breathing even. “Am I human?”

“Yes.”

“Like you?”

“Yes.”

His mouth contracts slightly. “Oh.” So it feels soft and odd when he kisses me, his mouth on my mouth, another red glow which lights up the insides of my eyelids.

Then I’m hitting him again, lashing out at the feeling like I’ll never stop.


End file.
